It's beginning to look a LOT like Christmas!

For all of my five loyal fans (thanks mom), I apologize for the short hiatus from writing. I have been really busy with work and friends.

The last week and a half has been great. It was absolutely insane at work because of the holiday. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from having Thanksgiving away from everyone but it was pretty good. They had a meal for us on Wednesday night at The Commons (where all of the international students stay) and that was pretty nice. Thursday at work they had turkey, ham, stuffing and other goodies for us as well. It really wasn't the same though being away from Lane and the fam so it was just different.

A funny story during our craziness in the parks. Sometimes I do lots of pin trading and sometimes I do none during an entire shift. Well, Thursday was a huge pin trading day and this family RUNS up to me going "PIN LADY!! PIN LADY!!". I just kind of laugh at first and look at them seriously and say "Actually, I go by Allie." They start laughing hysterically but I just look at them with this blank stare and they're like, haha, that's so funny. Then they attack my pin lanyard (and my personal bubble) and clean me out. Oh well, what're you gonna do?! Some people just think we're walking pin lanyards. Hmm, I have feelings, hopes and dreams too.

It's also amusing because we call the person sitting in the costuming building who gives us new Hidden Mickey pins each day "The Pin Lady" so I couldn't help but laugh.

The park has been Christmatized. There are wreaths, lights and music all over. It is like Christmas puked all over the park. Then there is The Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights in the Streets of America. It's not Ozzy Osbourne as so many park goers believe, it is actually from Little Rock, Arkansas from this guy named Jennings Osbourne who bought both of the houses on either side of his own to expand his growing Christmas light display so much that the spectacle it caused blocked an ambulance from making it through to a nearby home. The court ordered him to take down the display of over 4 MILLION lights and naturally, Disney heard about this and decided to bring them to Orlando!!!! It's honestly one of the coolest things I've ever seen though. The street is COVERED in lights (so it's amazing to think how it looked over three houses) and the over 4 million lights dance every 15 minutes to Christmas carols. It's really something you just have to see. There is also soap snow billowing around. I warn the kids to not catch the snowflakes on their tongue. It's just not the same.

This past weekend, my friends came in. We had an AWESOME time. It was two past roomies, two present roomies and one friend of a roomie. We went to Property Control, bought 25 cent Mickey ears with random names on the back (except mine, mine were little pink ones that said "My First Ear Hat", hehehehe) and went to Magic Kingdom. We enjoyed many rides and saw Wishes. Then we went to PI at night and had a blast at 8 Trax meeting some random older dudes from Australia. There were some really interesting drunk people dancing which is always amusing and we just had a grand ol' time. We hit MGM the next day which was PACKED but really fun and did Epcot their last full day here. We had lunch in the Biergarten in Germany at Epcot where we drank 1 liter mugs of beer and danced to the German band that was playing. It was so much fun. We went to PI again that night and had a really good time again. Overall, it was a really awesome break from work. I'm really glad they made it down.

So now I had a day off today which was a lazy day hanging out and watching more of The Office. I'm in Barnes and Noble right now because I just wanted to get out for a bit (and well, they have Starbucks here, I was jonesing for a White Chocolate Mocha :-) ). I think I'm going to go back soon, maybe watch Heroes, work out and just chill the rest of the night. This week is going to be fun too. I have six hour shifts tomorrow and Thursday and an 8 hour day shift on Wednesday. Wednesday, Kris and Caitlin are going to come to MGM and we're going to go see the lights after my shift and then on Friday we're going to go see Enchanted. I'm pretty stoked. Friday night, Scott and Joni are coming in to visit (yay!!) so we're going to go see the lights and then Saturday we're probably doing Magic Kingdom and Epcot. It should be a fantastic weekend.

I'll post pics soon!!!